


Aftermath

by t_writes



Series: 9-1-1 Week 2020 [2]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: 911 weeks, Buck is there for Eddie, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, we are ignoring the law suit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25164859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_writes/pseuds/t_writes
Summary: 911 Week 2020 Day 4: “Do you believe me?” + loveBuck is there for Eddie after the fight in "Malfunction"Also onTumblr!
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: 9-1-1 Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824334
Comments: 12
Kudos: 148





	Aftermath

Eddie takes a deep breath; then another and another, his chest heaving with the effort despite himself.

He presses dial on his phone with unsteady fingers.

“Eddie?” Buck’s voice hums across the line. He sounds like he just woke up.

“I’m sorry,” says Eddie automatically, “I shouldn’t have called.” It doesn’t feel like enough. It’s never enough. Eddie is torn. He shouldn’t have bothered Buck. But, no one else’s voice would comfort him so easily. The sound of his name from that mouth is heaven sent.

“Don’t be.” Buck sounds much more awake now. Afraid. “Where are you, Eddie?”

Eddie curls in on himself where he is slumped in a corner less than a hundred feet from the ring where he spilled blood tonight. The place is an abandoned warehouse made of corrugated metal and concrete. Someone brought in huge floodlights for the event. The ring itself was just a patch of dirt encircled with stacks of tires and some chain-link fencing.

The fighting is long over by now. Eddie is hiding on one of the upper floors over-looking the ring, waiting for the cops and EMS to clear out.

“Eds,” Buck’s voice is soft. There’s a sound of rustling fabric as if Buck is sitting up in bed.

“Don’t be mad,” Eddie says, beginning to shake as the adrenaline wears off.

“Are you hurt?” Buck asks as if that’s the most important thing in the world to him. Eddie drags a hand across his face, trying to catch his breath still. It’s been too long since he could breathe right. Could he have a fractured rib? He doesn’t know. He can’t think.

“I don’t know,” Eddie replies honestly, the lump in his throat making it hard to speak. “I didn’t mean to.”

Eddie tries putting the hand not holding the phone to the cold, gritty floor to push himself up. He grunts, more out of frustration than pain, when he finally manages to get upright. His side is smarting. If he fractured a rib he could puncture a lung and then he’d really be sorry. He pauses a moment, listening for any straggling officers.

“You didn’t mean to what?” Buck’s voice is far away. Maybe he put Eddie on speaker phone. Eddie can’t tell. He vaguely hears the sound of an engine starting but doesn’t register it.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” Eddie says again. It’s like he has no other words. What is he sorry for? For hurting someone? For punching someone so hard a piece of their nose was forced back into their head? Sorry he himself got hurt? Sorry he’s not home with Christopher? Sorry that he’s angry? That he doesn’t know why he’s angry? That really, he’s not angry at all, that it’s just better to feel angry than to stare down the great big nothing lurking beneath?

All of the above, probably.

“There’s no need to apologize, Eddie, as far as I’m concerned you’re just—in a bad way. And you’re figuring out how to ask for help,” Buck says, voice crackling over the line into Eddie’s ear.

In a bad way. You could say that, thinks Eddie as he limps across the now empty lot.

He’d told Lena to go. Why had he done that? Eddie laughs at his own stupidity. She didn’t need to be dealing with his bullshit more than she already did.

“Eddie, please tell me where you are. You’re starting to freak me out,” Buck says, sounding genuinely frazzled. The guilt rises up in Eddie again, making him nauseated. He should never have called. Even as he stumbles into the dark field where he parked his truck, he thinks he shouldn’t have called anyone let alone Buck with all of his lawsuit shit—

“Shit, the lawsuit,” Eddie mutters.

“Don’t worry about that. I—I can’t go through with it,” Buck says quickly. He’s afraid Eddie will hang up, Eddie realizes belatedly.

“Oh,” Eddie manages to say, overcome with relief and also somehow burning shame. To need someone else in your life so much that his loss would be a devastating, but final, blow—it’s Eddie’s most miserable secret.

In the field, the chest high grass grasps at him like a million small hands. It’s a sea. A dry, itchy sea, standing between him and the truck.

The sound of a car approaching reaches Eddie’s ears after a few minutes (hours?), stopping him in his tracks. The crunch of tires on gravel follows quickly as the car’s engine begins to quiet. It’s nearby. Just outside of the sea of grass, beyond its suffocating waves.

“Eddie!” Buck’s voice calls out. Eddie can hear its echo in his ear and stands completely still. His mouth is still slightly agape when Buck’s headlights turn onto the field and suddenly everything is filled with bright, burning light and he has to close his eyes.

“Eddie, I see your car. Are you in the warehouse? Or the field? if you can hear me can you make some sort of sound? Or wave your hands? Anything.” Buck sounds desperate so Eddie lifts one arm above the grass until Buck spots him.

The line goes dead but Eddie doesn’t have time to think about it because then Buck is standing in front of him. The genuine article. In sweats and a hoodie, but no shirt. Who leaves the house without a shirt, Eddie wonders blearily.

“How did you find me?”

“Are you alright?” Buck asks instead of answering Eddie’s question, but it’s by rote because he’s already moved into Eddie’s space to see for himself. His fingertips ghost over his newly acquired hurts. Buck must see how ugly they are. How they’re pasted in blotchy patches over the older bruises and marks.

Eddie just stands there, watching Buck’s shadowed blue eyes as they race over Eddie’s skin. Dark circles have taken up residence under them. He appears to be just as sleepless as Eddie has felt since Shannon died.

“I didn’t mean to hurt that man,” Eddie says apropos of nothing. He says it because he needs to say it. He needs for someone to believe him. Because he still remembers Lena’s incredulous face— like she couldn’t believe he was capable of any such thing. He couldn’t believe it himself. “I didn’t mean to hurt him. I called 911. I didn’t mean to hurt him, I swear.”

“Okay, okay,” Buck says soothingly, placing a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, anchoring him.

“Do you believe me?” Eddie’s voice cracks.

“Of course,” Buck says without hesitation and all of the fight just leaves him. He’s like a marionette whose strings have been cut. He would have ended up in the dirt in the middle of a field if Buck hadn’t been there to catch him.

Eddie doesn’t protest when Buck leads him to his Jeep. He doesn’t say anything as Buck helps him into the passenger seat. Now that the fear is gone the numbness is taking over. The shock of the accident and the adrenaline of the fight leave his body empty, hollowed out. All he can think of is his bed. And Christopher. And the insistent throbbing in his side.

He tells Buck as much, and Buck makes a beeline for Maddie’s apartment.

“I’m assuming that Chris is with Carla, correct?” Buck asks.

“Yeah,” he replies, still feeling out of it, but aware enough to sit up straight and pretend to look out the window.

When they arrive, Maddie is already opening the door to usher them in.

“What happened?” Maddie asks, alarmed. Her eyes are wide as she takes in Eddie’s bedraggled state.

“He got in a bit of a fight?” Buck asks more than tells, shrugging.

Maddie just hums disapprovingly and opens up the first aid kid she’s laid on the end table. Buck leads Eddie over to the couch next to Maddie and pushes him gently into the cushions.

Maddie asks him a bunch of questions, shines a light in his eyes, and examines every bump and bruise she can find.

“You have a minor concussion. And a fractured rib. But nothing too serious,” Maddie tells him at last.

He doesn’t have the energy to feel relieved.

“So, he shouldn’t go to sleep right?” Buck asks. His eyebrows are furrowed in worry.

“Right, not for at least 6 hours,” says Maddie. She leaves and returns with an ice pack for his ribs. “I’m sorry I can’t do more.”

“Thank you,” Eddie manages.

“Of course,” she smiles, “Alright, I’m going to sleep, guys. Will you be okay down here by yourselves?”

Buck nods quickly and thanks his sister before she goes to bed. Eddie has the presence of mind to feel a little guilty. It must be late and they all have work tomorrow except Eddie who planned his fight to be the night before his day off.

Buck takes a seat next to him, looking suddenly as tired as Eddie feels.

“How _did_ you find me?” Eddie asks again, wondering whether Buck hadn’t heard him earlier or was ignoring the question.

“I pinged your phone,” Buck says after a beat. “You sent me your location a while back for something, I don’t remember, and your location was still shared with me so I-”

“Thank you,” Eddie cuts off his rambling. Buck smiles, but it’s small and tired.

“You already said that,” Buck reminds him.

Did he?

“I did? Well, that’s because it’s important. Thank you—for believing me, for stalking me, for everything,” he says, grinning despite the events of tonight.

“Oh, shut up,” Buck says, smiling for real now, big and bright. He leans over and wraps his arms around Eddie haphazardly. The sudden movement jostles Eddie but he tries not to wince or make a sound or do anything that might make Buck pull away. He wraps his good arm around Buck’s shoulders and closes his eyes. “You know I would do anything for you, right?”

Buck’s voice is muffled by Eddie’s shoulder. He feels the words reverberate against his skin more than he hears them.

“Me too, I would do anything for you,” Eddie says, holding on to Buck a little tighter.

And if it sounds a little too much like an _I love you_ well, neither of them question it.


End file.
